It's not about the oil...
in World ·
I was just scrolling through this old link to the Economic Hit Man confessions, and man, it really hits home how much of our history is shaped by these massive corporate interests behind the scenes. It’s kind of wild to think about how much influence companies like Halliburton or Bechtel actually have over global policy and how they basically steer entire nations toward their own goals.
So, I was just thinking about how Share International explains the whole "Economic Hit Man" (EHM) thing—it’s honestly pretty wild how that entire system actually functions.
John Perkins basically laid it out for us—our whole job was to build an empire, and honestly, we pulled it off.
It’s kind of wild to think about, but we're basically looking at the birth of the first truly global empire in all of human history.
We basically built it without any kind of military, which is pretty wild because it’s unique in that it just doesn't have one.
It’s all about who's actually pulling the strings, you know? Instead of having a real leader, we just end up with what I like to call...
"Corporatocracy"—just this group of guys and a handful of women who...
They’re basically pulling all the strings when it comes to our biggest corporations, the major banks, and even our own government.
We’ve built up this empire using all sorts of different methods, though I guess the most classic way is probably...
Maybe we should just look for some developing nation that's sitting on exactly the kind of resources we're after—you know?
Take a look at how American Oil works. After that, we can work on getting the World Bank or one of its affiliates involved.
That branch ends up lending that country a massive amount of cash, and honestly, most of it just flows straight out.
You know, when you look at big American corporations like Bechtel or Halliburton, it really makes you think about how much influence they actually hold.
So, I was just thinking about how Ston & Webster would even go about building out those massive infrastructure projects...
We're looking at massive infrastructure stuff, you know, like power plants, shipping ports, industrial parks, and all that kind of thing.
It’s basically just projects designed to line the pockets of the ultra-wealthy in those countries, and then we just leave the nation itself hanging out to dry.
We're talking about massive debts here, honestly, the kind of overwhelming amounts that just feel impossible to ever actually pay back. It's a total economic nightmare.
Then the killer just circles back around and goes, "Look, you guys owe us..."
When you're drowning in cash but still can't actually pay off what you owe, you just kind of decide to lean into it instead.
Let's just make a deal where you do us a little favor—you just sell your oil to our guys.
It’s honestly such a bargain for the big oil companies, just let us build the military bases ourselves.
If you've got bases set up in your neck of the woods, you really ought to show up and vote during the next critical session at the UN.
Either you send your troops over to Iraq or some other conflict zone to make things work in our favor.
It's basically that spot where we really need everyone to have our backs. Something like that, anyway. That's how we're gonna make it happen.
They actually managed to pull it off and build that massive empire.
Could someone please help me make sense of how corporate rule and terrorism actually tie together?
Back when you guys were working for EHM over in Saudi Arabia.
John Perkins: Back in the early 70s, OPEC was really starting to change everything.
Basically, what those OPEC guys did was just squeeze us by putting a cap on the oil supply.
It totally knocked them to their knees, honestly. You’d see these massive lines snaking out of the gas stations for blocks.
We were all just driving around, honestly pretty terrified that we were about to see a total repeat of the Great Depression from 1929.
Back in the day, someone from the Department of the Treasury actually reached out to me and one other person.
EHM basically told us, "OPEC can't hold us hostage like that," which kind of means we really need to start brainstorming some new moves.
We really wanted to make sure that kind of thing doesn't ever happen again, you know? We all realized that the absolute key to making any plan actually work was...
It was all about Saudi Arabia because they had more oil there than anywhere else on the planet, you know?
Basically, the government could have totally kept a lid on the oil supply. At the same time,
Their royal family, the Sauds, was basically always open to being bribed. Just saying.
So, we ended up heading out to Saudi Arabia, and just to give you the short version of what went down: we wrapped things up.
So, there was this whole deal where the royal family actually agreed to cough up the lion's share of the cash.
What exactly did they gain by shipping all that oil from around the world straight back to the USA?
Thinking about putting some money into US Treasuries lately... honestly, those interest rates are looking pretty decent right now.
It feels like the Department of the Treasury should probably just step in and hire some Americans to get this moving.
Companies that would eventually step in to rebuild Saudi Arabia using a Western model—
Desalination plants, highways, ports, power stations, and just everything else.
They're building these massive cities right out in the middle of the desert. It’s honestly wild how much Saudi Arabia is changing lately.
Just some Westernized country.
Part of the whole deal was that Saudi Arabia would agree to keep prices in line.
We just need to keep the oil within borders that actually work for us, and then we'll be all set.
Basically, the Saudi family will keep holding onto power as long as they play ball.
It all comes down to the agreement they made, and honestly, everything’s still holding up just fine today. But, you know,
That basically triggered what the CIA calls a "blowback," which is really just their own doing.
It’s that one specific term you use when someone’s pulling strings behind the scenes and somehow actually manages to pull it off successfully.
But honestly, it ends up triggering some pretty heavy unintended consequences, you know? There's just...
There’s just this massive, deep-seated resentment toward the Saudi family within the Islamic world because of how things have played out.
It all went down in Saudi Arabia because the locals there just aren't happy when they see their own kind being treated like that.
The holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, just sitting there surrounded by all those Westernized urban hubs.
It’s all just massive petrochemical plants and McDonald's franchises at this point, honestly. Right now, the House of Saud is basically calling the shots.
It’s honestly just so unstable over there; that whole country has dealt with way too much violence and constant assassination attempts.
There’s just so much unrest right now, and honestly, unemployment is hitting people really hard. It's like everything is falling apart, especially with how oil prices are behaving...
In so many other countries out there, it’s just not serving the majority of people like it actually should.
It was all framed as some kind of curse, you know? But honestly, looking back, that whole thing just paved the way for creating this massive...
There’s just so much simmering resentment rippling through the Muslim world right now, whether you look at the stuff happening on the surface or all those deeper, more subtle layers that people tend to overlook.
It basically just paved the way for Al-Qaeda and all those other terrorist movements to take off.
What kind of future do you guys see unfolding for the Middle East?
I honestly feel like we’ve ended up creating something really intense over in the Middle East—I’m pretty much convinced that's what happened.
Things are getting pretty sketchy and unstable out there right now, and honestly, one of the main reasons we decided to go through with it was...
Of course, we're looking to keep a lid on China, Japan, and Korea, and then there's those other guys too.
A lot of countries pull a huge chunk of their oil straight from the Middle East, and when you look at our situation...
We aren't nearly as hooked on the Middle East for our oil as they are on us, which honestly makes the whole dynamic feel pretty different when you really look at it.
It’s just part of how our politics works, really. We'd much rather have control over the oil coming out of Iran and Iraq.
We were dealing with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but honestly, we just ended up stuck in Iraq.
They somehow managed to stir up way more resentment than they ever intended to, honestly.
Things were different before 9/11, you know? Now, there's just this massive wave of terrorism running wild in Iraq.
A huge chunk of them aren't even actually Iraqi. If the US administration recently...
It feels like they’re just gonna try to use those elections—which honestly look like a total wash by now—as some kind of excuse.
They’re talking about pulling out of Iraq, and honestly, I can't help but wonder what on earth is actually going to happen once everyone leaves.
What happens to those terrorists we actually funded and trained, the ones who are absolutely losing their minds right now? Where do they go?
You think they're actually gonna show up?
So, I was just thinking about how Share International explains the whole "Economic Hit Man" (EHM) thing—it’s honestly pretty wild how that entire system actually functions.
John Perkins basically laid it out for us—our whole job was to build an empire, and honestly, we pulled it off.
It’s kind of wild to think about, but we're basically looking at the birth of the first truly global empire in all of human history.
We basically built it without any kind of military, which is pretty wild because it’s unique in that it just doesn't have one.
It’s all about who's actually pulling the strings, you know? Instead of having a real leader, we just end up with what I like to call...
"Corporatocracy"—just this group of guys and a handful of women who...
They’re basically pulling all the strings when it comes to our biggest corporations, the major banks, and even our own government.
We’ve built up this empire using all sorts of different methods, though I guess the most classic way is probably...
Maybe we should just look for some developing nation that's sitting on exactly the kind of resources we're after—you know?
Take a look at how American Oil works. After that, we can work on getting the World Bank or one of its affiliates involved.
That branch ends up lending that country a massive amount of cash, and honestly, most of it just flows straight out.
You know, when you look at big American corporations like Bechtel or Halliburton, it really makes you think about how much influence they actually hold.
So, I was just thinking about how Ston & Webster would even go about building out those massive infrastructure projects...
We're looking at massive infrastructure stuff, you know, like power plants, shipping ports, industrial parks, and all that kind of thing.
It’s basically just projects designed to line the pockets of the ultra-wealthy in those countries, and then we just leave the nation itself hanging out to dry.
We're talking about massive debts here, honestly, the kind of overwhelming amounts that just feel impossible to ever actually pay back. It's a total economic nightmare.
Then the killer just circles back around and goes, "Look, you guys owe us..."
When you're drowning in cash but still can't actually pay off what you owe, you just kind of decide to lean into it instead.
Let's just make a deal where you do us a little favor—you just sell your oil to our guys.
It’s honestly such a bargain for the big oil companies, just let us build the military bases ourselves.
If you've got bases set up in your neck of the woods, you really ought to show up and vote during the next critical session at the UN.
Either you send your troops over to Iraq or some other conflict zone to make things work in our favor.
It's basically that spot where we really need everyone to have our backs. Something like that, anyway. That's how we're gonna make it happen.
They actually managed to pull it off and build that massive empire.
Could someone please help me make sense of how corporate rule and terrorism actually tie together?
Back when you guys were working for EHM over in Saudi Arabia.
John Perkins: Back in the early 70s, OPEC was really starting to change everything.
Basically, what those OPEC guys did was just squeeze us by putting a cap on the oil supply.
It totally knocked them to their knees, honestly. You’d see these massive lines snaking out of the gas stations for blocks.
We were all just driving around, honestly pretty terrified that we were about to see a total repeat of the Great Depression from 1929.
Back in the day, someone from the Department of the Treasury actually reached out to me and one other person.
EHM basically told us, "OPEC can't hold us hostage like that," which kind of means we really need to start brainstorming some new moves.
We really wanted to make sure that kind of thing doesn't ever happen again, you know? We all realized that the absolute key to making any plan actually work was...
It was all about Saudi Arabia because they had more oil there than anywhere else on the planet, you know?
Basically, the government could have totally kept a lid on the oil supply. At the same time,
Their royal family, the Sauds, was basically always open to being bribed. Just saying.
So, we ended up heading out to Saudi Arabia, and just to give you the short version of what went down: we wrapped things up.
So, there was this whole deal where the royal family actually agreed to cough up the lion's share of the cash.
What exactly did they gain by shipping all that oil from around the world straight back to the USA?
Thinking about putting some money into US Treasuries lately... honestly, those interest rates are looking pretty decent right now.
It feels like the Department of the Treasury should probably just step in and hire some Americans to get this moving.
Companies that would eventually step in to rebuild Saudi Arabia using a Western model—
Desalination plants, highways, ports, power stations, and just everything else.
They're building these massive cities right out in the middle of the desert. It’s honestly wild how much Saudi Arabia is changing lately.
Just some Westernized country.
Part of the whole deal was that Saudi Arabia would agree to keep prices in line.
We just need to keep the oil within borders that actually work for us, and then we'll be all set.
Basically, the Saudi family will keep holding onto power as long as they play ball.
It all comes down to the agreement they made, and honestly, everything’s still holding up just fine today. But, you know,
That basically triggered what the CIA calls a "blowback," which is really just their own doing.
It’s that one specific term you use when someone’s pulling strings behind the scenes and somehow actually manages to pull it off successfully.
But honestly, it ends up triggering some pretty heavy unintended consequences, you know? There's just...
There’s just this massive, deep-seated resentment toward the Saudi family within the Islamic world because of how things have played out.
It all went down in Saudi Arabia because the locals there just aren't happy when they see their own kind being treated like that.
The holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, just sitting there surrounded by all those Westernized urban hubs.
It’s all just massive petrochemical plants and McDonald's franchises at this point, honestly. Right now, the House of Saud is basically calling the shots.
It’s honestly just so unstable over there; that whole country has dealt with way too much violence and constant assassination attempts.
There’s just so much unrest right now, and honestly, unemployment is hitting people really hard. It's like everything is falling apart, especially with how oil prices are behaving...
In so many other countries out there, it’s just not serving the majority of people like it actually should.
It was all framed as some kind of curse, you know? But honestly, looking back, that whole thing just paved the way for creating this massive...
There’s just so much simmering resentment rippling through the Muslim world right now, whether you look at the stuff happening on the surface or all those deeper, more subtle layers that people tend to overlook.
It basically just paved the way for Al-Qaeda and all those other terrorist movements to take off.
What kind of future do you guys see unfolding for the Middle East?
I honestly feel like we’ve ended up creating something really intense over in the Middle East—I’m pretty much convinced that's what happened.
Things are getting pretty sketchy and unstable out there right now, and honestly, one of the main reasons we decided to go through with it was...
Of course, we're looking to keep a lid on China, Japan, and Korea, and then there's those other guys too.
A lot of countries pull a huge chunk of their oil straight from the Middle East, and when you look at our situation...
We aren't nearly as hooked on the Middle East for our oil as they are on us, which honestly makes the whole dynamic feel pretty different when you really look at it.
It’s just part of how our politics works, really. We'd much rather have control over the oil coming out of Iran and Iraq.
We were dealing with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but honestly, we just ended up stuck in Iraq.
They somehow managed to stir up way more resentment than they ever intended to, honestly.
Things were different before 9/11, you know? Now, there's just this massive wave of terrorism running wild in Iraq.
A huge chunk of them aren't even actually Iraqi. If the US administration recently...
It feels like they’re just gonna try to use those elections—which honestly look like a total wash by now—as some kind of excuse.
They’re talking about pulling out of Iraq, and honestly, I can't help but wonder what on earth is actually going to happen once everyone leaves.
What happens to those terrorists we actually funded and trained, the ones who are absolutely losing their minds right now? Where do they go?
You think they're actually gonna show up?